Two high profile figures associated with the Kremlin joined tens of thousands of Muscovites in the streets Saturday to once again protest Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s attempt to prolong his tenure as the nation’s leading figure in the upcoming presidential election.

Syrian protesters siding with Prime Minister Bashar Assad’s regime made their displeasure with the U.S. and France apparent, after those countries showed support for the opposition, by attacking their embassies in Damascus on Monday.

In results released Sunday evening, 77 percent of Egyptian voters have endorsed amendments to their country’s constitution that will pave the way for parliamentary elections, which the military junta said will be held in June.

Libyan security forces launched an attack on the rebel-held city of Zawiya west of Tripoli on Thursday. A rebel commander and about 30 others were reported killed in the fighting, which continued into Friday.

In a brawl broadcast live on television and radio, Venezuelan legislators exchanged blows as members of President Hugo Chavez’s United Socialist Party tried to remove an opposition member from the parliament’s speaker’s podium.

As protests in Egypt continued to rage, just-installed Vice President Omar Suleiman has come to an agreement with some opposition groups to liberalize the media, release political prisoners and undergo a transition of power “within a constitutional framework.”

Amid a new wave of protests across Egypt comes news that the country is now under curfew, military vehicles prowl the streets, and opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has been placed under house arrest.

Former U.N. nuclear watchdog head, Nobel laureate and likely candidate for his country’s presidency, Mohamed ElBaradei has continued to position himself as a leading political figure in Egypt by taking part in a large-scale protest Friday over the death of a man at the hands of plainclothes policemen.

There are the red shirts, and there are also the black shirts—a group of Thai dissidents, led by rebel Gen. Khattiya Sawatdiphol until he was shot in the head Thursday, apparently by a sniper, as he was being interviewed by New York Times reporter Thomas Fuller in Bangkok. His injury was described as “severe.”

A split within the Burmese opposition has led to some members leaving the defunct National League for Democracy to create a new party, the National Democratic Force, after authorities abolished the NLD for failing to register according to the military regime’s strict election laws.

At least nine protesters, including the nephew of Iran’s opposition leader Mir Houssein Mousavi, were killed as demonstrators in Tehran continued the civil unrest that began a week ago in honor of the death of dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri.

As protests in Iran continue, the extent to which the government will go to silence dissent has sunk to even further depths of ridiculousness. Protesters at a Tehran soccer match chanted and waved green banners, to which government censors responded by delaying the telecast of the game and editing out the crowd noise and close-ups.

Members of the Iranian public aren’t the only ones registering their displeasure about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s impending second term. On Monday, as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei formally gave his endorsement to Ahmadinejad, some key members of Iran’s political elite were conspicuously absent from the ceremony.

With a dearth of smiles in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister by his political nemesis, President Robert Mugabe. The long fight to this moment, which included Tsvangirai’s exile and the death of many of his political supporters, has culminated in a power-sharing agreement between the two men and their parties.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has survived an electoral challenge with flying colors. His party swept 17 of 22 state elections, although the opposition was victorious in several key skirmishes, including the capital state, the mayoralty of Caracas and even Venezuela’s biggest slum, traditionally a Chavez stronghold.

From detaining his opponent while in the middle of a runoff election campaign to suspending international aid operations due to groups’ alleged bias against the government, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has stopped at nothing to keep himself in power.

The Lebanese government and the Hezbollah opposition group came to a power-sharing agreement Wednesday, potentially marking the end to the country’s two-year-old political crisis, which only weeks ago erupted in clashes that left 65 people dead. The move, which some analysts say may benefit Hezbollah more than the Western-backed government, has been hailed by the parties directly involved and others, including the U.S. as well.

Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, will face a confidence vote in the next 90 days as opposition groups continue their push to remove him from power. The vote comes on the tail of last week’s unofficial and meaningless referendum for autonomy in which the wealthy state of Santa Cruz voted for greater independence from the federal government.

The Pakistani National Assembly on Wednesday elected Fehmida Mirza to be the country’s first female speaker. The selection of Mirza, a leading member of the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party, marks the first significant transfer of power since opposition parties won a majority of seats in February’s general elections.

Political observers in Iran are estimating that turnout for Friday’s parliamentary elections may break the country’s 2004 record low of 51 percent. The government’s ruling religious conservative faction is accused of barring many opposition reformist candidates and depressing electoral participation.

A tentative peace may have come to Kenya after the political opposition canceled its rallies and after there were reports that the head of the African Union would attempt to broker a truce. Rioting and other violence since elections last week have killed hundreds.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is showing signs that he’s feeling the heat from the West, loosening his regime’s steel-trap grip by lifting some of the most severe measures he enforced since imposing a state of emergency rule in his country. As of Tuesday morning, in fact, 3,416 people who were jailed during the initial crackdown had been released, according to a government spokesman.

Burma’s top military general has agreed to meet with imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, provided she drops her “attitude” and meets other conditions. Meanwhile, the government says it has arrested 2,093 protesters and bystanders (Burmese law prohibits gatherings of five or more), while the BBC puts the figure closer to 10,000.

As the Islamic world rallies to the support of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Iran is feeling more and more emboldened to press its confrontational foreign policy and efforts to silence political opposition at home.